2 leagues, 3 divisions per league,
-in first league divisions of 4, 4, and 4 teams
-in second league divisions of 4, 5, and 5 teams,
66-76 intradivision games, 18-22 games per opponent
86-96 interdivision games, 9-12 games per opponent
no interleague games

In the 4-5-5 league, 108 games (9x12) vs interdivision foes, 54 games (it comes out to a mix of 3x 14-14-13-13 and 2x 13-13-13-15) for the 5-team divisions and 120 (10x12) + 42 (14x3) for the 4-team division

If nothing, any recommendations/guidelines to follow that might help me out? I tried Stickware, but it never comes out with a truly balanced schedule, and the whole point of trying to do this manually was to get an even schedule (not one where a team plays 9 against one out-of-division rival and 15 against another) and have some control over favoring intradivision matchups in September. After about 30 hours of work, though, the best schedule I could come up with had clumped offdays and too many 20+ games stretches without time off.

For those who have done it, what's the best way to create a manual schedule by hand? Start with one team and schedule it all the way through, then move to the next, etc.? Or do the whole schedule one day at a time?

Hopefully this one is relatively simple - any chance of getting a 154-game (or 162, whichever is easier) schedule for an 1 league, 1 division, 8 team league? Every time I try to convert one manually, it always crashes badly. Maybe I've just got clumsy hands?

Hopefully this one is relatively simple - any chance of getting a 154-game (or 162, whichever is easier) schedule for an 1 league, 1 division, 8 team league?

Yeah, this should be really simple. The easy thing would be to take the 16-team 154-game or 162-game schedules (your preference, or both, or whatever) for 2 leagues with no interleague and chop off the second league. Got a preference for either of those?

In looking at them, the 154 is a lot of 2- and 4-game series, which make for clever solutions to maintain overall balance in matchups home & away but may be less desirable than mostly 3-game series. Plus with the 162 there is the file readily available without an open half-week for an All-Star Break if time off then is not wanted since the one league configuration does not allow an All-Star Game.

I worked up something for you - is your configuration 4/4/4 and 4/5/5 in the two leagues? Tell me whatever it is and I can rearrange it into that and post it for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by genghisdunn

If nothing, any recommendations/guidelines to follow that might help me out? ... After about 30 hours of work, though, the best schedule I could come up with had clumped offdays and too many 20+ games stretches without time off.

For those who have done it, what's the best way to create a manual schedule by hand? Start with one team and schedule it all the way through, then move to the next, etc.? Or do the whole schedule one day at a time?

Sounds like from your precise layout scheme and how far you say you got (done, just not pretty enough) you did a very good job considering especially the 14-team league is a tough configuration.

I do it by series rather than individual games. I start by determining how to layout all the series for one team, then lay out everything else off that. The first key is figuring how to fit the right number of games into a reasonable number of series and keeping home/away and overall splits even or as desired.

For three 4-team divisions I can do that one team, then all the division games can fall off from automatically. When that one is playing another division team, at the same time the other two division teams can be playing each other.
1vs2, 3vs4
1vs3, 2vs4
1vs4, 2vs3, etc.
If there are more teams, there are more options for laying out those more matchups, but they are still routine to do.

Likewise for interdivision and interleague games when that one is playing some other teams, I can matchup teams in that same division in a similar manner.
1vs5, 2vs6, 3vs7, 4vs8
1vs7, 2vs8, 3vs5, 4vs6, etc.

When there are odd numbers of teams in divisions like the 4/5/5 that forces interdivision and intradivision games to occur at the same time, which adds difficulty into the process of laying out the games. The ordering described below has to at least sort of go on while the layout is occurring.

Once all the matchups are schemed out into complete blocks where every team is accounted for I start ordering them - stuff like putting more division games toward the end of the season, trying to keep from having teams play against each other in series too close together, trying to clump homestands and roadtrips but not make them too long, trying spread the offdays around, etc.

After I get the order, then I begin the fine tuning. I have spreadsheet stuff I can set up to show how many games in a row a team is set to have overall, home, and away. If I need to open an offday maybe I move a game from one series to another matchup of the same teams in the same place, e.g., make a 4-game set of 1@2 a 3-game series while making a 3-game series somewhere else in the schedule the new 4-gamer between the teams. Too many home or away series in row or too many 1-series homestands and roadtrips - then I can flip series around, e.g., reverse a 1@2 series to a 2@1 series while elsewhere in the schedule reversing a 2@1 series to a 1@2 series.

That trial-and-error fine tuning can sometime take quite a while. Once I get everything (stuff like the standard current MLB things like no more than 20 days without offday and limited homestand and roadtrip lengths) apparently met that I want to, or at least as close as I can muster, I have a few final checks I have to do after I convert those series into all the individual games. I also can bump series around by a day to put some (more) variety in where the offdays fall.

The process seems hard to explain (compared to just doing it) and probably generally tear-inducingly boring. But if you were interested in more details I could surely oblige. If you were simply interested in getting the schedule and being done with it though, I more than understand.

I worked up something for you - is your configuration 4/4/4 and 4/5/5 in the two leagues? Tell me whatever it is and I can rearrange it into that and post it for you.

AL 4/4/4 and NL 4/5/5 in the two leagues is correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gmo

Sounds like from your precise layout scheme and how far you say you got (done, just not pretty enough) you did a very good job considering especially the 14-team league is a tough configuration.

I do it by series rather than individual games. I start by determining how to layout all the series for one team, then lay out everything else off that. The first key is figuring how to fit the right number of games into a reasonable number of series and keeping home/away and overall splits even or as desired.

For three 4-team divisions I can do that one team, then all the division games can fall off from automatically. When that one is playing another division team, at the same time the other two division teams can be playing each other.
1vs2, 3vs4
1vs3, 2vs4
1vs4, 2vs3, etc.
If there are more teams, there are more options for laying out those more matchups, but they are still routine to do.

Likewise for interdivision and interleague games when that one is playing some other teams, I can matchup teams in that same division in a similar manner.
1vs5, 2vs6, 3vs7, 4vs8
1vs7, 2vs8, 3vs5, 4vs6, etc.

When there are odd numbers of teams in divisions like the 4/5/5 that forces interdivision and intradivision games to occur at the same time, which adds difficulty into the process of laying out the games. The ordering described below has to at least sort of go on while the layout is occurring.

Once all the matchups are schemed out into complete blocks where every team is accounted for I start ordering them - stuff like putting more division games toward the end of the season, trying to keep from having teams play against each other in series too close together, trying to clump homestands and roadtrips but not make them too long, trying spread the offdays around, etc.

After I get the order, then I begin the fine tuning. I have spreadsheet stuff I can set up to show how many games in a row a team is set to have overall, home, and away. If I need to open an offday maybe I move a game from one series to another matchup of the same teams in the same place, e.g., make a 4-game set of 1@2 a 3-game series while making a 3-game series somewhere else in the schedule the new 4-gamer between the teams. Too many home or away series in row or too many 1-series homestands and roadtrips - then I can flip series around, e.g., reverse a 1@2 series to a 2@1 series while elsewhere in the schedule reversing a 2@1 series to a 1@2 series.

That trial-and-error fine tuning can sometime take quite a while. Once I get everything (stuff like the standard current MLB things like no more than 20 days without offday and limited homestand and roadtrip lengths) apparently met that I want to, or at least as close as I can muster, I have a few final checks I have to do after I convert those series into all the individual games. I also can bump series around by a day to put some (more) variety in where the offdays fall.

The process seems hard to explain (compared to just doing it) and probably generally tear-inducingly boring. But if you were interested in more details I could surely oblige. If you were simply interested in getting the schedule and being done with it though, I more than understand.

Not at all, this is exactly what I was looking for. I really wanted to try to put something together, and I guess what I had so far was a best effort. I think I did some things right, particularly in the fine tuning aspects (I ended up moving individual games around, trying to make homestands and roadtrips instead of 3 games home, 3 games away, 3 games home, etc.).

But I wasn't sure where to start, so I just kind of dove in on April 1 by scheduling the whole league one week at a time. I kept a running tab on Excel at the bottom of the page that started with the total number of home/road games each team would have against each other team, and then used the COUNTIF formulas to subtract the scheduled games automatically. It was never a problem of keeping a balanced schedule or the 81/81 home/road split because those were my two biggest goals going in.

The offdays gave me the biggest problem. When I reached the last month, I found I had some teams with 7 days off remaining and some had only 2 or 3, which made scheduling really difficult. I just ended up starting with the teams with few off days, filling in their entire remaining schedule, and working out from there. The teams with the most off-days left kind of got the shaft, because they ended up clumping together as 2 or 3 days off in a row. Not what I wanted, but we were ready to start the new season and I didn't want to hold things up to start the schedule over without getting some idea of where I was screwing up in the first place.

You said you'd worked something up, and I'd love to see it. I may have questions (if that's okay), but what you've already said helps immensely for the next time I try to work through one of these things.

...I just kind of dove in on April 1 by scheduling the whole league one week at a time. ... The offdays gave me the biggest problem. When I reached the last month, I found I had some teams with 7 days off remaining and some had only 2 or 3, which made scheduling really difficult.

Sounds like you did a good job for just jumping in with it. My techniques may not be optimal, but I have gotten a lot of experience with them. They work pretty well for me, but sometimes it still takes a while to get all the details set. I have tried to get better at laying things out in such ways that I think the fine tuning will be easier or there will at least be greater flexibility in it.

A bit more explanation that may be useful toward the offdays and why series seem easier with which to work... MLB now fits 162 games into 26 weeks, which is 51 half-weeks when the All-Star Break is removed from consideration. So for one team if each half week had a 3-game series in it, that would mean 153 games plus an offday every week. Making 9 of those half weeks 4-game series gives the right number of games and gets down to the number of offdays to make it all fit. But there cannot be two 4-game series in the same week, and three weeks in a row with games all 7 days gets over 20 consecutive days with games. I keep an eye on and adjust those things while getting the homestand and roadtrip lengths optimized.

For that 162 games in 51 half -weeks there could be 42 with 3-game series and 9 with 4-game series. But sometimes more 4-game series will be prescribed and some of the 3-game series can be pumped up to that and others dropped down to 2-game series. Sometimes 2-game series can stand alone, other times they can be paired into 4-game blocks to fit in a half week. Fitting the games initially into the half-weeks like that pretty much makes sure the offdays work out since I try to spread them around when I go from have all the matchups laid out to putting them into order.

Sounds like you did a good job for just jumping in with it. My techniques may not be optimal, but I have gotten a lot of experience with them. They work pretty well for me, but sometimes it still takes a while to get all the details set. I have tried to get better at laying things out in such ways that I think the fine tuning will be easier or there will at least be greater flexibility in it.

A bit more explanation that may be useful toward the offdays and why series seem easier with which to work... MLB now fits 162 games into 26 weeks, which is 51 half-weeks when the All-Star Break is removed from consideration. So for one team if each half week had a 3-game series in it, that would mean 153 games plus an offday every week. Making 9 of those half weeks 4-game series gives the right number of games and gets down to the number of offdays to make it all fit. But there cannot be two 4-game series in the same week, and three weeks in a row with games all 7 days gets over 20 consecutive days with games. I keep an eye on and adjust those things while getting the homestand and roadtrip lengths optimized.

For that 162 games in 51 half -weeks there could be 42 with 3-game series and 9 with 4-game series. But sometimes more 4-game series will be prescribed and some of the 3-game series can be pumped up to that and others dropped down to 2-game series. Sometimes 2-game series can stand alone, other times they can be paired into 4-game blocks to fit in a half week. Fitting the games initially into the half-weeks like that pretty much makes sure the offdays work out since I try to spread them around when I go from have all the matchups laid out to putting them into order.

I hadn't thought of breaking it down like that, but you're exactly right.

I think part of the problem I had was not thinking ahead to the problems that splitting a 6-game season series into 4- and 2-game sets would cause. I ended up with a lot of mismatched 2-game series that I had to try to deal with -- but slotting those in made it almost impossible to go back and move things around once I realized the offdays weren't working out. Setting up largely 3-game series, and then going back and looking for the weeks to add the 4th game here and there, would have made a lot more sense.

Thanks for the schedule and all the advice. If I come up with something that looks halfway useful, I'll add it to the mix.

Really 2 games against 3 separate teams? With 3 games against 2 teams they could be easily split into 1 home series and 1 road series, whereas the 3 times 2-game series does not work out so evenly. Also, any cares about which teams are played interleague (like stay in same division, or get something against each)?

Really 2 games against 3 separate teams? With 3 games against 2 teams they could be easily split into 1 home series and 1 road series, whereas the 3 times 2-game series does not work out so evenly. Also, any cares about which teams are played interleague (like stay in same division, or get something against each)?

Err, it's supposed to be 2 series, 3 games per that series. Sorry, I guess I confused myself. No preference on the interleague.

__________________
Sometimes the best laid plans will never get you laid the way you plan.

2 leagues, 2 divisions per league,
7 teams per division in one league, 8 teams per division in the other league

93-96 games within division (13-16 per opponent)
42-48 games within league outside division (6 per opponent)
21-24 interleague games (3 per opponent)

One pair of versions of the file (7788) has the 14-team league as the first one in the configuration, while the other pair of versions (8877) has the 16-team league first in the configuration.

Within each pair, one file (1) has the interleague games matching up teams in corresponding divisions in each league, and the other pair (2) has the interleague games matching up teams in opposite divisions in each league.

My first schedule request, but I've been using the currently available schedules for some time now and really appreciate all the work that's gone into them. A terrific addition to the game.

I'm looking for a 1-league, 1-division, 8-team, 98-game schedule. Each team plays 14 games against the others, preferably in 4 3-game series and one 2-game, but anything that works is fine. This will be for a "schedule expansion" from the 1L/1D/8T, 70-game schedule already available, so plenty of off-days is both reasonable and desireable due to lengthy travel time between cities.

I'll be glad to answer any questions about specific if they arise.

Thanks!

__________________Jeff Watson
Former dynasty writer and online league player, now mostly retired